Anyone ever exclusively use emulators and/or burned ISO's and then started collecting?

[RetroRich]

I tried my hand at collecting about a year ago, and couldn't stick with it after i got a modded xbox with all the 8 bit/16bit emulators and games on it. To have all of this on 1 box, connected to a CRT television, made me stop buying cartridge based games.

I then modded most of my disk based systems, PS1, PS2, etc to play backups.

Recently i pulled out the very few disk based games i actually own, and thought it would be cool to maybe start collecting for them again because the case art is cool to look at. I figured i'd focus on PS1 since that is what i grew up with mostly.

It doesn't help that I am incredibly cheap when it comes to spending money. I've attempted to go to flea markets to hunt for ps1 games but whenever i find some that I am interested in playing, i always think "I can just download the ISO files, burn them to cd-r and play it on my modded ps1" and then I end up not buying it.

I've tried taking the ps1 games that i do own, and putting them in a cd rack next to where i sit at the pc, so that i can be inspired to fill up that cd rack with good ps1 games. It is somewhat working.

Right now a store by my house has Parasite Eve black label for $10, and i'm going back and forth on whether or not i should go buy it. But i still keep thinking that i can just download the ISO's and save money.

Anyone ever get into this habit and ended up getting out of it?

[Atarileaf]

Can't say I've ever had this dilemma. I'm a collector and like most, enjoy owning and playing the real hardware and software. I love to use emulation for quick play or for discovering games I've never played or homebrews that I might enjoy but if I like them enough, I buy them.

When I had my dreamcast I burnt a disc of a bunch my favorite games to play via emulation on the DC. I did enjoy it but it seemed a bit of a hollow experience compared to getting out a toaster or top loader and playing the real cart. There's just something fundamentally different in playing the real thing.

[IHatedSega]

I like collecting things, I was collecting movies and some games that I could afford until I had to move and put stuff in a storage place.

Now all I do every day is download games and play them while watching youtube videos that review older games so I can find some new old gems I over looked. I have 70 ps1 games on my hard drive alone, and still getting more to play. Not to mention all my NES, SNES and N64 games. Emulation has also allowed me to look into the mid to late life Sega libraries which had great shooters in them. ALSO, if you hate the soundtrack for Sonic CD with emulation you can replace the soundtrack. Its in separate mp3 files, so you can just swap them with other songs youd like to play, its more amusing than the actual game to me.

Emulation is also great for arcade games in particular, cause so many that were great werent brought to consoles, like Ninja Baseball Batman.

At this point Id rather stick to emulation to play classic games since theyre so expensive and theyll have bit rot soon. I use a Saitek dual stick controller that is perfect for any old game system i want to play, especially the N64. This is just more practical to me now. Id love to buy a NEO GEO AES which is the KING of the systems Id love to collect for but cant because the games I want for it are sold for thousands or hundreds of dollars, so thats out the window. I might get the NEO GEO X though for christmas, but Im not sure now.

PS BUY EVE! The stores around here have it for $30.

PSS I kinda read the title wrong, sorry.

[Jack_Burton_BYOAC]

I went deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of emulation for the past decade. I built emulation setups that were probably some of the best in the world. But even as they got better and better and better I just ended up not playing many games to completion. There's always something missing, some extra thing to tinker with.

It's only just now that I'm back to buying systems and games again. I sold off most of my stuff during college, and now I really regret a lot of it.

[RetroRich]

I did end up buying parasite eve. I noticed it goes for around $20 on ebay, i figured $10 was a good price.

[Rickstilwell1]

I ended up doing the reverse. I found out about emulators after having lots of games. As a kid I never got rid of what I was given. Those emulators really impressed me for a while, enough to try and trade in much of my childhood collection. It probably wasn't smart to not use ebay, but a lot of the stuff did show wear anyway.

I was content with using emulators for PS1 and older because that's what my PC could handle.

But then I started having problems with computers and could never get stuff working perfectly like I had before. I also missed the accuracy of the original systems. When I had my first full time job I went collector crazy and tried out all the systems I really wanted to, buying lots of games. It got to the point where I realized it was a big hassle not having much room left for anything else. It started to look like it was going to fall on me and overwhelmed me. So as soon as I found aout about flash cartridges which run games perfectly on consoles instead of using choppy inaccurate PC emulation, I finally decided it was time to sell the games again.

I also learned that modchips and proper burning allow games to have less errors than those I was experiencing with a swap disk. I found someone who could do mods and went all-out so now the only systems I have that aren't backup-ready are Gamecube and the current generation (although Wii may be easy to break into or so I've heard. I might give that a go when the Wii U comes out.)

Focusing less on video game collecting also allows more time to spend on other media I like. I am really into music and enjoy cartoons as well.

[Polygon]

I'm not a fan of emulation. I've never tried one that's exactly the same and doesn't have glitches. However, they do have one use for me. If I've never played a game, I can fire it up on an emulator and decide if I want to buy it or not.

[theclaw]

I'm getting tired of the space taken by consoles. But downsizing quickly won't get me as much money back. People like having pictures, set prices, and all that stuff who takes time.

[Jack_Burton_BYOAC]

There's one huge drawback to roms/isos that I don't see brought up often in these types of discussions, and that is that it is difficult to find other people to play with when you're using an emulator or a burned game.

Most casual gamers don't hold a lot of respect for emulators. I don't mean focused disdain that you often find on collector forums, but more of an overall dismissal. If they see you sitting at your pc playing F-zero with an xbox controller it's going to be like

"what are you playing?"
"F-zero. Want to try?"
"nah, I'm cool."

If you have a real SNES in your floor with a cartridge plugged in you're much more likely to pique their interest. Even more so if it is a system they might not have ever heard of or seen in person like a PC engine or Neo Geo.

The same can almost be said about burned games. It's just a mental thing. As soon as someone sees that CD-R go into the system it's like a switch in their brain turns over and they won't take nearly as seriously as a "real" game for some reason. I could probably elaborate and speculate why, but I think we can all make our own educated assumptions and they'd probably be mostly true.

Even conversations can be tainted by them. Just the other night I was talking on facebook to a friend and it went like this:

"I'm really loving discovering all these great Turbo CD games, and I finally 100%'d Dracula X"
"oh, so you bought one"
"no, on an emulator"
"..."

I could explain that the particular emulator was Ootake, which is an astonishly good emu. I could mention that I did it on a CRT in 240p mode, or that I used an actual PC engine controller to play with. It wouldn't matter. Once you say that dirty word "emulation" it's like they shut down.

[XYXZYZ]

Emulation killed my love of video games. I too had the "Why buy a game when I can download teh ROMz?" phase, in the early-mid 2000s.(I was also broke) And to make matters worse, I started using cheats and savestates a lot. I'd download a game, play it for a bit, say "eh, that was alright" download another, repeat. I could have any game I wanted, for systems I didn't have. I didn't truly appreciate anything, no one game had any significance over another; my gaming hobby became completely meaningless.

In 2005 I discovered Digital Press, and this place rekindled my enthusiasm for games. I saw all these people with real hardware, and it reminded me how much I loved games in the past. I started buying games, and when you have that limiting factor of having to pay money for a game, and you can't cheat, it makes the game much more meaningful. It really is true what they say about "emulation just isn't the same as real hardware". It's like being alive again, and now emulation gives me this lame "cheap" feeling.

I still emulate every now and then, I find MAME more practical than arcade boards for my needs (pause switch!) but for the most part I stay away from it.

[IHatedSega]

Most casual gamers don't hold a lot of respect for emulators. I don't mean focused disdain that you often find on collector forums, but more of an overall dismissal. If they see you sitting at your pc playing F-zero with an xbox controller it's going to be like

"what are you playing?"
"F-zero. Want to try?"
"nah, I'm cool."


Lately people whove Ive talked to that have never heard of emulators fall into 3 groups.

1) They dont believe it can be done, or if you say its wonderful for older games then thats the word they focus on, "old", and they dont care for it because of that.

2) They dont understand the terms "rom" "ecm file" or "iso" and that makes them really confused and they dont want to deal with all the hassle. They do however think its cool I can do this, and think Im great with computers, even though I tell them I learned everything from fantasyanime.

3) They think its awesome and want to learn how to do it, but want me to hold their hand as they go through with it, but Im not a good teacher so I tell them to go to fantasyanime. Then I can help them with other questions like ecm files.

Its all about what kind of people they are, if theyre crafty and curious about things, or if theyre casual and rely on their friends and ads to tell them whats good. The first group would love delving into emulation and other things, and the second group probably doesnt deserve to be wowed by how awesome the old games are and how cool it can be to experience the games you missed out on when you were a kid. That statement was kinda arrogant or something, but I think theyd rather play COD or WII Sports than Super Mario World and Final Fantasy 7.

[Ace]

When I got into emulation in 2004, I thought it was the best thing I've ever come across. Being able to play a whole variety of games from various different consoles all on your computer was a genius idea for me.

Then, a few years down the road, it hit me: software emulation is not the way to go. I'm all about having the most authentic experience possible, not so much with controllers, but rather with the overall accuracy of any emulator or hardware clone. As I got more and more emulators, I started noticing problems with the emulation, and the first thing to go was the sound. Having inaccurate audio drives me nuts. With video, I couldn't care less, so much as it's not an excessively blurry, noisy or pixellated mess. So when I started noticing all the audio imperfections of emulators, I pretty much ditched them save to test a few things or to play arcade games as the original boards are far too pricy. Now, I've got pretty much all the original hardware I ever wanted to get, and I'm not going back to software emulation unless that's the only option there is.

Another thing, too: I don't necessarily care about owning the original cartridges/discs, I just want to be able to play games on the original hardware by any means possible. Sure, it's nice to have the original carts/discs, but I'd be fine with flash cartridges and burned discs, save for the PlayStation because its laser sucks (I use an SCPH-1001 model, but regardless, every PlayStation I own has problems with burned games skipping FMVs and streamed music, which annoys me like you wouldn't believe it).

[Rickstilwell1]

I think the worst thing about emulators is the visuals of scrolling.

You will notice that if you play a fixed screen game, there won't be many probelms at all. If you play a sidescrolling game like Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog with your PC hooked up to your bigscreen LCD with an HDMI cable, you will easily see how rough and choppy the scrolling is. Like what are all those clear lines that move across the screen that distort the graphics. It looks like you're playing one big mess. Do filters fix that?

[wiggyx]

I started collecting about 25 years ago, so no, not so much.

However, even though I am very much so still collecting actual games, I do enjoy the convenience of emulators. I often play SNES games on my Xbox or Dreamcast. It makes life easier when friends come over to play. Switching games without getting up or fiddling with carts can be really nice. Also, MAME is great since I'm never going to, nor can I, buy every arcade cabinet that I want.

I generally don't dick around with disc-based stuff. Occasionally I'll burn a game that I can't find for the Saturn or PS1, like an old JP import or something that I'm on the fence about purchasing. If I like it, I buy an original (if I can find it). If not, I just toss it.

[Tanooki]

When I started to look back and collect up and play old stuff was in 1995 and emulators came really just after that so no I didn't. But that said emulators did introduce my interest into the Turbo Duo at least, but mostly I just used them for a mix of ROMs (easy access for the lazy) for carts I had not wanting to dig out but also to try out stuff I may or may not want to see if it sucks before popping down some cash on an old game. Later with the shady behaviors going on getting GBC, GBA, N64 out there as the system lived it helped me buy a few and avoid a few so it kind of balanced out there too.

[Words iManifest]

To the OP...I see you live in Chicago and what I want to know is, where did you find Parasite Eve for $10 ? I live in Chicago a few blocks from People Play Games and their prices are pretty good and Video Games Then and Now aren't bad either but that's a deal !

On topic...I love playing on the original hardware and the collection looks quite stunning (to me anyway) when displayed nicely but I'm not at all against emulation.

[Bubble_Man]

I collect NES games, but play roms on an emulator because my NES doesn't work and I'm not gonna shell out for a top-loader. I might try a clone system later on, but I've read mixed opinions when looking them up here. Also, save states have spoiled me greatly.

[Atarileaf]

So as soon as I found aout about flash cartridges which run games perfectly on consoles instead of using choppy inaccurate PC emulation, I finally decided it was time to sell the games again.



That's different though, its not emulation IMO. If you're playing a game on real hardware, even if its on a flash cart, you're still playing it on an actual system. For example I use Drivewire to load virtual floppy disks into a real Tandy coco and play the game on a real coco 3.

But I could use a Tandy Coco emulator on my PC to play the same game. Two completely different experiences though.

I do still prefer to own the actual game though, even if I do use something like a flash cart for convenience. I would never sell everything and just use a flash cart system. Collecting roms isn't nearly as fun or fulfilling as collecting the real thing, even if playing it on real hardware is the exact same experience.

[Rickstilwell1]

That's different though, its not emulation IMO. If you're playing a game on real hardware, even if its on a flash cart, you're still playing it on an actual system. For example I use Drivewire to load virtual floppy disks into a real Tandy coco and play the game on a real coco 3.

But I could use a Tandy Coco emulator on my PC to play the same game. Two completely different experiences though.

I do still prefer to own the actual game though, even if I do use something like a flash cart for convenience. I would never sell everything and just use a flash cart system. Collecting roms isn't nearly as fun or fulfilling as collecting the real thing, even if playing it on real hardware is the exact same experience.

Yeah. It's mainly because I need both the money and the space. I wanted to own all the boxes and manuals to look at too, but for some reason that emergency last spring made me realize I actually was cool with just scanning images of all physical media that comes into my possession in order to be able to look at the original again. Also basically if all I kept buying were classic games, I'd never have money to buy new games that actually help support game companies.

Now for the first time in many years I get excited to browse new games for 3DS, Vita, PS3 and X360 (+Wii U soon). Not PC so much because I've never been much of a PC guy till certain must-have games go in the bargin bin. Like Diablo Battle Chest - that one became pretty cheap. It's a shame Windows 7 doesn't run those games right and the version that comes built in with my laptop doesn't provide XP mode so I have to keep my old XP around just for some old games.

If I was rich and had 2 extra bedrooms just to hoard stuff in I would do it, but sadly I'm not.

Right now I have just three main sets that I plan to keep:

The 7 CIB Suikoden games (USA) - Been my #1 top favorite series for years.

The 12 CIB Sonic games for Game Gear (USA for 10; JPN for the exclusive 2) - I know of nobody else who has this and it was painstakingly hard to do.

The 5 CIB console/handheld ports of Mr. Nutz (PAL Region) - pretty hard to obtain via importing

[Tron 2.0]

Emulation not really well i use to years ago for mame.Mostly,because i couldn't see myself buying up arcade pcbs and getting a supergun or a jamma cab to run them.Not that i have a problem with emulation but it's not all ways %100 either the game graphics can be a little off or it's sound.For consoles i pick them over emulation then for playing the game on it's original hardware.It is more 'authentic to me then playing it through some emulator.Still there was a time when i sold and traded for when the next console came out.Up until the mid 90's at least.For awhile there i thought about playing those games that i missed but through emulation and it didn't feel right to me.So going back to 2004 "i started buying those console again" that i use to own and i am glad for it.

Still it is starting to get expensive for some consoles such as the price's going up on the snes.There are times i wasn't sure id get a snes again because of that.Still when i seen that 'there are a few flash cartridges for it i thought why not.Most recently i bought a super everdrive and now i just need a snes or a sfc.

[Atarileaf]

Emulation not really well i use to years ago for mame.Mostly,because i couldn't see myself buying up arcade pcbs and getting a supergun or a jamma cab to run them.

Yea I think mame is great for arcade games. Again, I'd prefer the real thing but the Mame setups that people have now are fantastic and a great substitute to building your own full blown retro arcade. :)

[Ace]

I collect NES games, but play roms on an emulator because my NES doesn't work and I'm not gonna shell out for a top-loader. I might try a clone system later on, but I've read mixed opinions when looking them up here. Also, save states have spoiled me greatly.

You'd be better off getting your NES fixed. No Famiclone will be an adequate replacement for an original NES. Loose cartridge slot, I presume?

[Tron 2.0]

Yea I think mame is great for arcade games. Again, I'd prefer the real thing but the Mame setups that people have now are fantastic and a great substitute to building your own full blown retro arcade. :)
Agreed ive thinking about down loading mame again.While it doesn't beat the real thing at least it's the cheaper alternative.Not to mention there have been times that i like to get a supergun,but it's a gamble buying used arcade pcbs for it and hoping that it's not defective.Also i don't know any thing about electronics.If the game were to break i wouldn't know how to repair it either.Plus the places that offer the service are not cheap either for repairs.

By the way it's funny you mention the drivewire for the tandy coco.Ive watched you're video on it and that is a neat device.Around last year i think i really missed owning a genesis so i bought the console again with a everdrive flash card.While the everdrive is convenient it hasn't stop me,from buying games for it.I like having a physical copy of the game but i know i'll want to have a small collection and just play the rest from the flash card.